Known for her colourful abstracts, the artist is getting a retrospective at the age of just 34. She talks about her love of karaoke, working on a full-length opera and how to deal with fame at a young age
Viewers may find Rachel Jones’s paintings “beautiful”, but they should be warned: the artist herself doesn’t love that word.
“In our culture, the idea of beauty sadly isn’t discussed in a critical, rich way – it’s much more reductive as a term,” says the 34 year old. “I hope that when people describe the work as beautiful, it doesn’t just stop there.” Her aim, she says, is to pull viewers in deeper, beyond the surface of the work.
Despite her youth, Jones is already preparing to open a major retrospective. Her forthcoming show at Dulwich Picture Gallery will see her large-scale, gloriously colourful abstractions hung alongside works from the museum’s collection. It will be Jones’s first institutional solo show in the UK, and also the museum’s first solo show of a contemporary artist in its main exhibition space.
“The opportunity I have to look at everything as a whole is incredible,” she says. “It’s not often that you get to do that at such an early stage in your career. It’s a real gift and privilege to look back at what I’ve done in the last six years or so.” After graduating from the Royal Academy Schools in 2019, Jones was picked up by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, had a work acquired by the Tate, and was part of solo or group exhibitions at Chisenhale Gallery, the Hayward Gallery and the Hepworth Wakefield, as well as galleries and institutions around North America, Europe and Asia.
